Official Cites Need for More Bird Flu Readiness

The U.S. is making progress in preparations for a bird flu pandemic, including measures to close schools and quarantine the sick, but vaccine supplies remain inadequate, a top health official said.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, director of the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, citing “bottlenecks” in vaccine production.

“We’ve got to get more and better antiviral drugs. And we’ve got to have every single link in our public health system as strong as it can be so it can detect this problem,” she said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”